187-10002-10087, ; 2025 RELEASE UNDER THE PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY ASSASSINATION RECORDS ACT OF 1992 |

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Date:09/30/93
Page: 1
JFK ASSASSINATION SYSTEM

IDENTIFICATION FORM

AGENCY INFORMATION

AGENCY : SSCIA
RECORD NUMBER : 157-10002-10087

RECORDS SERIES :
TRANSCRIPTR

AGENCY FILE NUMBER : R-352

ORIGINATOR : SSCIA
FROM: .
TO:

TITLE :
TESTIMONY OF SAMUEL HALPERN
DATE : 06/18/75

PAGES : 89

SUBJECTS :
CUBA
ASSASSINATION
CASTRO
MAFIA
SPECIAL GROUP
BISSELL,
LANSDALE, EDWARD
HARVEY
OPERATION MONGOOSE
ZOGBEY
POISON
AMLASH
5412 COMMITTEE
ZRRIFLE

TASK FORCE W a
MAHEU, ROBERT “

DOCUMENT TYPE : PAPER, TEXTUAL DOCUMENT
CLASSIFICATION : T
RESTRICTIONS : REFERRED
CURRENT STATUS : P
DATE OF LAST REVIEW : 09/30/93

. OPENING CRITERIA :

{[R] - ITEM IS RESTRICTED

RK 50955 DoclId: 32281927 Page 1

Date:09/30/93
Page:2
JFK ASSASSINATION SYSTEM

@ | IDENTIFICATION FORM
COMMENTS :

Box 245
Folder 9

([R] - ITEM IS RESTRICTED

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The Chairman. The hearing will come to order.

I would like to ask Mr. Schwarz if he would give us a
brief synopsis of what we intend to question our witness
about this morning.

Mr. Schwarz. The witness this morning will only be a
single witness. He is Mr. Samuel Halpern. He was in the
Far East, and I have now found out he was involved in ftha-#
some alleged killing of an agent in
Tailand, which are collateral matters that we may want to
take up with him at the end.

But he came back here in the fall of 1961 and was in-~
structed as assistant to get into the Cuban matter. And
he will testify that he was told that they would proceed
to overthrow the Castro government, and that there were no
holds barred.

He will then describe the way iniwhch they worked
with the Special Group.

The Chairman. What was Halpern's /position?

Mr. Schwarz. Halpern's position was as Executive
Assistant to Harvey. And Harvey, you williremember, was the
man that was actually in charge of the Cuban position.

The Chairman. When are we going to get Harvey?

Mr. Schwarz. He is coming next |Wednesday morning.

We are going to get some of this ;same conflict between

the no-holds-barred testimony, which in his mind I guess he

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: 1 Mr. Halpern. Yes, sir.
3
g 2 Mr. Schwarz. Who else was present at that meeting?
é ) Mr. Halpern. fAUMr....Ghose: Zogbey.} He was my branch
i 4 chief. |
5 3 Mr. Schwarz. Is he alive today, or is he dead?
6 | Mr. Halpern. He died last year.
7 | Mr. Schwarz. Approximately when' in the fall of 1961
8 | did that meeting take place?
9 Mr. Halpern. About the middle of October 1961.
10 Mr. Schwarz. What instructions were you given by Mr.
11 Bissell at tht meeting?
; 12 _ Mr. Halpern. Mr. Bissell said he had recently -- and
5
@ : 13 he didn't specificy the date or the time ~-- he had recently
oO .
< 14 | been chewed out in the Cabinet Room of! the White House by
| 15 borh the President and the Attorney General for, as he put
16 it, sitting on his ass and not doing anything about getting
17 rid of Castro and the Castro regime. |His orders to both
18 iMrse-Zogbey| and to me were to plan for bn operation to
5 19 accomplish that end.
3
; 20 Mr. Schwarz. Was any content put; into the term
: 21 “get rid of", or was that the term that was used, and only
: 22 that term?
a 23 Mr. Halpern. To the best of my recollection, that was
@ i 24 it. There was no limitation of any kind. Nothing was for-
: 25 bidden, and nothing was withheld. And. ji the objective was to
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| TOP SECRET
3
3 1 | remove Castro and his regime.
@ 3 2 Mr. Schwarz. And did you talk about tactics at all
g S in that meeting, or was it just a general discussion about
i 4 | getting organized.
9 Mr. Halpern. Just a general discussion as to what we wou lid
6 ! do, how we would proceed, and what we|/would need. And at
7 i that point I had no idea how many people were left on the staff
i
8 i in the branch only having been on the job a day or a day and
iH i
9 | a half.
10} Mr. Schwarz. Shorly after that time did you get put in
il contact with a general? |
: 12 | Mr. Halpern. Yes, sir. General Lansdale.
@ : 13 | Mr. Schwarz. And what was his function when you were
a
‘ 14 | introduced to him?

15 Mr. Halpern. Both iMr.-> I were introduced
16} to him as the new chief of Operations for a government-wide
1? effort to accomplish the removal of Castro and the Castro
1g | regime. This effort was to include not lonly CIA but the

19 Department of State and the Department |of Defense. And

20 General Lansdale was to be the Chief of Operations for that

2h outfit.

410 Fat Street, S-E., Wasnington, 0.C. 20603

202 Mr. Schwarz. And did you brief him about Cuba or did

23 he brief you about the operation, or what was the nature of that?
24 Mr. Halpern. No, we briefed him first in the old

25 Situation Room, what used to called the Tbell Building, which

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Mr. Halpern. It wasn't a matter|of General Lansdale's

being in charge, or the Attorney General being in charge,

nobody objected to General Lansdale reporting to the Attorney
General.

It was a matter of whether this would be done through
the normal chain of command, or whether we would actually be

under the General's direct command.

i
H

Mr. Schwarz. But it still is a chracterization, you
were dealing with organization and bureaucracy?

Mr. Halpern. That is right. And drafting papers.

Mr. Schwarz. Drafting papers to do what?

Mr. Halpern. To try to get organized in terms of how
we would accomplish the objective.

Mr. Schwarz.Did any of those papers that you drafted
in those early stages include any reference to assassination
as a device to accomplish the objective?

Mr. Halpern. No, sir. |

Mr. Schwarz. Now, did Mr. Helms enter the picture in
the latter part of December 1961?

Mr. Halpern. That is correct. |

Mr. Schwarz. Describe how he came into the picture.

Mr. Halpern. To my knowledge, gbey! described to

me a meeting he had been at at the Director's morning staff
meeting -~ this is Mr. McCone's morning staff meeting -- in

which Mr. McCone, almost in terms of a bombshell for the

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group at the meeting, stated that Mr. Helms would henceforth

be -- the words were, his man on Cuba./This was something

that nobody in the room apparently hadiany inkling of, and

particularly Mr.Helms, nor MEeSZ ogbey,

. The Chairman. May I ask you to Fepeat that?

Iam sorry, I just didn't catch it.
i

Mr. Halpern. At a meeting sometime in December 1961,

an
which was the morning staff meeting that the Director held, and
Woebey} was present --

Mr. Schwarz. But you were not?

Mr. Halprrn I was not, I got this from

SPECS)

the Director, Mr. McCone, announced that Mr. Helms would be

his man on Cuba, Mr. Helmg would then!be the Chief of Operatia

for the Deputy Director of Plans, and Mr. Bissell was in the |

room as the DDP. |
Mr. Helms had no inkling of this before the meeting,

be

and so stated to (Mm Ra@ubys if he had

gegbey,, and even asked

had any inkling before the meeting.

MeemZegbey. \told me that he had none whatsoever.
Mr. Schwarz. Did Mr. Helms then come and visit your

new organization and tell you to make some changes?

Mr. Halpern. Yes. He came to MEMERZOgBey:' s office and look

at the list of officers, male and female, who were still
working in the branch. Most of them were the remnants of the

people from the old Bay of Pigs operation who had not yet been

reassigned. TOP SECRET

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recall to a female operative.

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30

involved in this operation? That was the first reference I

Mr. Schwarz. There was no such previous evidence.

Mr. Halpern. We had a number of female officers! and

Still do, in our branches. And there were some in the |Cuban

branch and the Cuban task force.

Senator Huddleston. What types of activities did they

7

participate in?

Mr. Halpern. Oh, recruting of agents, the handling

of agents, disseminating reports, preparing propaganda guid-

ances, preparing papers for a special group as appropriate,

doing the work of any other officer.

Senator Huddleston. Can you name:
i

one or suggest one

that was heavily involved in the assassination attempt?

Mr. Halpern. Oh, I don't know of

tion attempt per se,

any in the assassina-

Senator Huddleston. You don't know of any?

Mr. Halpern. No, sir.
Senator Huddleston. Thank you.

The Chairman. Senator Mondale?

Senator Mondale. I am sorry I cam e in late, Mr. Hal-

pern, and missed some of your testimony. As I came in you

were saying that orders came from somewhere to get off your

ass.

Mr. Halpern. Yes, sir. Mr. Bissell told M:

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% 1 ‘cers whose objective would be to plan for the overthrow of
2 g é the Castro regime.
i 5 Mr. Smothers. Was it your understanding that these
i 4 | plans were to extend to assassination? |
5 Mr. Halpern. That word was not jused, sir. But no
6 holds were barred, and we had no limitation.
7 Mr. Smothers.Let me ask you it arother way. What was
8 | your understanding of what Mr. Bissell had been told to do
| ;
9 | by the President and the Attorney Geneval?
10 Mr. Halpern. To get rid of Castro and the Castro regime
11 on the Island of Cuba.
: a Mr. Smothers. Did Mr. Bissell convey to you the idea
: 13 that that included killing Castro?
a
< 14 Mr. Halpern. The subject never came up per se.
15 Mr. Smothers. What did you come away from that meeting
16 expecting to do?
17 Mr. Halpern. We were very hard put to come upwwith
18 any real ideas. We didn't know what to jdo, frankly. And we
n 19 went back ~- one thing we both agreed on, both&Zegbey! and
3 es
. 20 I, is that we were not going to come up with a piece of
: 21 paper which said this was going to be easy or could be done
E 22 overnight, or could be done with mirrors.
* 23 The Chairman. Did you come away after your conversation
; 24 with Mr. Bissell with the idea that he jhad instructed you
6

25 to come up with a plan of some kind designed to overthrow,
|

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8
$ 1 later. |
@ 3 2 | The Chairman. I would like to take this and several
i 5 other questions up with the committee, |one of which deals
: 4 i with the question of the August recess: And I want to
5 confer with you on that, too.
6 How many more questions do you have?
7 | Mr. Schwarz. Instead of asking the other questions I will
8 | ask whether he knows anything about them, and we could bring |
| :
9 | him back later if he does. |
16 Do you know anything about sORaRE |
7" Na oi nc eee
. 12 | |
e .
F 13 4 Mr. Halpern. Yes, Sir.
a .
‘ 14 Mr. Schwarz. We will bring you back on that. :
15 The Chairman. Can we get that done now?
16 Mr. Schwarz. Such SRE) was made ging it? |
17 | Mr. Halpern. I don't know where it was made, sir, |
la |} but I know it was made.
. 19 Mr. Schwarz. It was made in the U.S.? |
. 20 Mr. Halpern. As far as I know it was. |
i 21 Mr. Schwarz. And was that donej under your direction?
i 99 Mr. Halpern. Well, it was done at the Far East Division
a 23 request,and I was the one who did the negotiating with the
a 24 Office of Security.
3 25 Mr. Schwarz. And was the plan*’ that (aetilmbwou
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itvwithsome-fémalé,-

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Somemfashiion?
Mr. Halpern. No, sir, that was no

Mr. Schwarz.

Mr. Halpern. The plan was to hav

ukarnospurpoLnting.to-har

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Schwarz. In short,

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female?

Mr. Halpern. And, therefore, fir

Senator Mondale. How was /th

iLindones.a?

Mr. Halpern. It wasn't fa film. T

pSfrom it in propaganda leaf

and things like that, just Apie:

Mr. Schwarz. Who authorized that?

Halpern. (vacua who was

TOP SECRET

Mr.

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Mr.

authorized it?

Mr. Halpern. Not offhand, no, “he personally I don't
!
|

—TOP SECRET

Schwarz. ' Do “you know if any higher authority

‘

68

5 Mr. Schwarz. And was it done, or was it turned off?
i _ ica? |
6 4 I mean, the Pictu erestaken? |
van Mr. Halpern. The {p. umemwassstaken', and that was the |
8 \ end of it.
. H
9! Mr. Schwarz. And Mr. Maheu was used to accomplish it?
10 5 Mr. Halpern. I have no idea whatsoever. |
- eee
ll) Mr. Schwarz. And were thenedains : Seiuoindenes ia?
; 12) Mr. Halpern. No, they were not.
3
< i
& : 13 | Mr. Schwarz. Why not?
a i (
& u . :
: 4 Mr. Halpern. We didn't have any proper outlets to i
| ;
15 | get it done.
1
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16 “Mr. Schwarz. You had iphempilim, but you had .no way to
4
1? distribute it as
18 | Mr. Halpern.
. 19 Mr. Schwarz. 7
S 20 |
3 |
5 21 Mr. Halpern. The name is brand new to me, sir.
: -* a
é 20 Mr. Schwarz. Do you know anything! about the
‘i !
2 23 :
: ;
- 24 Mr. Halpern. No, sir.
S 25 Mr. Schwarz.
|
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69

Mr. Halpern. That I participated? No, sir.

Schwarz.

Mr. Halpern. No, sir. I was only in Bangkok, I think,

once in my life.

Mr. Schwarz. That doesn't ring a bell at all?

Mr. Halpern. No, sir.

Mr. Schwarz. Do you know about any other killings?
Mr. Halpern. No, sir.

The Chairman. Any other questions?

Senator Schweiker. I just want to say, Mr.Chairman, that

I would like to compliment the witness for some very clear and

|

impartial answers, instead of the partial amnesia that we have

And I think your kind of candor is very helpful to us

in this committee to do the job. And I think it was very

i

refreshing to hear some clear-cut specific recommendations of

what did or did not happen. I just want to thank you.

f '
!
t

The Chairman. I agree.

Thank you very much.

If there are no further questions,I think that completes

the interrogation.

(The witness left the hearing room.)

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